Wheels - handbuilt or factory?

Pretre

I've been thinking about some new wheels for my Spesh Roubaix Comp & I have about £350-400 to spend.
I'm about 87kg (& dropping steadily ) so super lightweight may not be the way to go!
I was thinking of Fulcrum 3 or maybe handbuilt Ambrosio rims, DT spokes on Dura-Ace hubs available from the LBS.
Any thoughts?

maddog 2

swings and roundabouts

a game of two halves

factory are tricker

HB are more practical

tis up to you

I run HBs myself but I can see the pull of the factories too.

4candles

Personally i'd go for the hand builts... because you can match the hubs to the groupset and then choose you preferred spoke and rim combo.

I recently opted for DA 7800 , DT rev. spokes 2 cross tied and soldered with DT 1.1 28h rims. brilliant wheel set and a comperable weight to factory stuff too.

SDP

i got a new pair last year ...

OP ceramic/tune hubs/cx ray/conti attack & force tyres...

came in a bit lighter than a pair of mavic K es's ...

superb wheels....

meagain

If it's a vote...HBs. Classier, really, plus some practical advantages as mentioned.

blorg

If you go for the Fulcrums, these guys have them cheaper than anywhere else I've seen. (Considering them myself.)

Monty Dog

Depends on whose building your handbuilts - OK if it's a decent builder, less so if it's the Saturday lad in your LBS looking for some work experience..

Smokin Joe

Monty Dog wrote:

Depends on whose building your handbuilts - OK if it's a decent builder, less so if it's the Saturday lad in your LBS looking for some work experience..

You've hit the nail squarely on the head, Monty.

50% of the wheels I ever had built varied from sub-standard to crap. The first pair I ever built myself were better than any of those and I am far from being an expert.

azzerb

Hand builts, anyone say they're not lighter or aero than factory obviously haven't looked into the rims/hubs/spokes you can buy from the shop.

When i buy a decent price set of wheels, they'll be hand builts.

Pretre

After reading all the comments here I went for the handbuilt's option - Ambrosio Excellence, DT spokes, Dura-Ace hubs & a shiny new Ultegra cassette to finish it off.
Picked them up yesterday morning from Bike+ in Purley, near Croydon, put them on the bike & went for a ride in the howling gale yesterday afternoon (pedalling DOWN a 7% hill just to keep moving was not much fun ). Seem to roll a lot better than the old wheels but will need to test them more - if the weather ever improves!

Thanks for all the replies.

JWSurrey

Nice.
I run handbuilts on both my road bikes now. (Monty - thanks for the advice on these)

As a tried and tested anecdote to show one of the advantages of handbuilts; I bumped in to a chap I'd met at the Princes Risborough sportive about 3 weeks ago. He'd been off the bike for a fortnight after Risborough due to a spoke breaking on his low spoke count factory wheel - It went so far out of true that he rode the last few miles with the brakes rubbing.
The supplier ended up replacing the entire wheel under warranty, as the alternative was a lengthy wait for a special spoke to be imported in to the country.

Having just ridden at speed in bunches, through pot holes on the T.O.W, I'm glad to be running handbuilts! This time next year, they'll probably need new rims due to brake wear. Both sets still 100% true radially and laterally, thanks to a great build job.

Mike_T5

Sorry to drag this back up top again, but I am curious as to the weight of HB's vs Factory... I really like the Mavic Ksyrium SL Premium's, which come it at 1480 grams per pair according to their site. So, how would a pair of Mavic Open Pro's with Dura Ace hubs weigh in at as a comparison? Also, does anyone have any idea what a set of spokes weigh in at, to make it easier for me to figure out what a set of handbuilts will weigh in at with various rim/hub combos?

wildmoustache

JWSurrey wrote:

Nice.
I run handbuilts on both my road bikes now. (Monty - thanks for the advice on these)

As a tried and tested anecdote to show one of the advantages of handbuilts; I bumped in to a chap I'd met at the Princes Risborough sportive about 3 weeks ago. He'd been off the bike for a fortnight after Risborough due to a spoke breaking on his low spoke count factory wheel - It went so far out of true that he rode the last few miles with the brakes rubbing.
The supplier ended up replacing the entire wheel under warranty, as the alternative was a lengthy wait for a special spoke to be imported in to the country.

Having just ridden at speed in bunches, through pot holes on the T.O.W, I'm glad to be running handbuilts! This time next year, they'll probably need new rims due to brake wear. Both sets still 100% true radially and laterally, thanks to a great build job.

I've ridden the ToW three times on factory builts without ever having a problem or any wheel ever going out of true. I take the point though that spare parts are easier on most HBs ... though some factory builts use standard parts too.

Monty is right that HB can be great IF the wheelbuilder does a good job.

Campag factory build wheels are very reliable indeed it seems.

I'd say get whatever you like the look of ... but if you do go HB be careful to go for a good wheelbuilder

blorg

Not directly on topic but bear in mind the Ksyrium SL Premium shaves a whole _5g_ across both wheels compared to the Ksyrium SL by using a few titanium bits (1480g vs 1485g) but charges a hefty premium. I believe design and performance-wise the wheels are identical. I'm at a bit of a loss as to why anyone would go for the SL Premium over the SL. You don't even get a single red spoke with the Premiums (red is heavy)!

aracer

Mike_T5 wrote:

Sorry to drag this back up top again, but I am curious as to the weight of HB's vs Factory... I really like the Mavic Ksyrium SL Premium's, which come it at 1480 grams per pair according to their site. So, how would a pair of Mavic Open Pro's with Dura Ace hubs weigh in at as a comparison? Also, does anyone have any idea what a set of spokes weigh in at, to make it easier for me to figure out what a set of handbuilts will weigh in at with various rim/hub combos?

A handy site is http://weightweenies.starbike.com/listings.php - according to that OP rims are 430g each, current DA hubs are 125g/267g and 32 spokes and nipples in the right length are ~240g for Comp and brass or ~175g for Revs and alu. So the wheels would be 730/870 with Revs for a total of 1600g. Worth noting that on the real weights there Mavic wheels are consistently 50-100g heavier than claimed though (unfortunately they don't have more recent wheels listed), so there's probably not that much in it. You could of course also knock another 40g off the handbuilts by only using 28 spokes.

JWSurrey

wildmoustache wrote:

I've ridden the ToW three times on factory builts without ever having a problem or any wheel ever going out of true. I take the point though that spare parts are easier on most HBs ... though some factory builts use standard parts too.

Monty is right that HB can be great IF the wheelbuilder does a good job.

Campag factory build wheels are very reliable indeed it seems.

I'd say get whatever you like the look of ... but if you do go HB be careful to go for a good wheelbuilder

I rode the ToW last year on factory wheels, and they were fine - In fact, they were a great set of wheels, and I rode them until they wore out. I was really just pointing out that a lot of factory wheels have low spoke counts, and wonderfully high tensions, so you have a trade-off there.
Yeah, agreed, there are factory built wheels out there which use servicable components.
Besides, you can get some great and cheap wheels although they (the cheaper ones) should be treated as disposables.

It's not a hard and fast rule, however I found my handbuilts to be less crashy i.e. smoother, yet probably just as direct. It was like getting a bespoke suit/pair of shoes, as I got to choose the hubs, rims, spokes and spoking pattern, having taken the LBS's advice based on my weight, riding style and bike.